If I Were Giant Sized
by Anidwen
Summary: "You make it too easy. You're always so descriptive," replies Ariadne, nonchalantly meandering up and down the miniature dunes that sweep the beach. A/A
1. Sometimes I Can't See Myself

Sooo. This is the first thing I've written in a long time. I'm not sure if it's gonna be a one-shot or something more than that, but I'm not promising anything since I have a horrible track record for updates. Actually, I barely have any track record at all seeing as how I dont put stuff up here very often. Ever. Anyways. I have a few more bits floating around in my head/in microsoft word, but I wanted a little feedback first. Or something. Hang on folks, this could get angsty.

Title/ lyrics are from "If I Had It All" by Dave Matthews. I don't usually do songfics or Dave, but it inspired me, what can I say.

Inception and all characters and ideas therein belong, of course, to Christopher Nolan. Genius.

* * *

_Sometimes I can't move my feet, it seems_

_As if I'm stuck in the ground, somehow, like a tree_

_As if I can't even breathe_

_All the screams come whispering out_

_As if nobody can see me_

_Like a ghost, sometimes I can't see myself,_

_Sometimes_

"Ariadne, this is amazing," Arthur breathes, turning slowly, with his arms outstretched. "I can't believe you actually managed this." He's sure he looks ridiculous, a grown man in a suit and a tie, frolicking on the beach like a child. But really, he_ is_ just a child. They both are.

They've been challenging each other for days, trying to think up some dreamscape that the other can't comprehend. And it goes two ways: sometimes the one who imagined such places can't even describe them well enough for the Architect to attempt to create them. But this…this is perfect. They have both played their parts to a T.

Arthur thought that he had her, that she would never be able to create an ocean of the perfect blue, sand of the perfect grade, the sunset, perfectly orange and perfectly red and perfectly soft and hard at the same time. But she did.

"You make it too easy. You're always so descriptive," replies Ariadne, nonchalantly meandering up and down the miniature dunes that sweep the beach.

"That's what I do. Notice the details, remember them, repeat them to you so you can dream me the perfect vacation spot…"

Ariadne doesn't respond, choosing instead to hum a little and tentatively, carefully, slip her hand into his.

She seems to sense somehow, that this one is more than just a game to him. Arthur always needs everything precise, everything in its place, and the chaos that came after the Saito job and Dom's retirement has taken a harder toll on him than he would like to admit. But she knows. And he knows that she knows. She always does.

The sand is warm under his feet. He knows this because the first thing he did upon his arrival was to take off his loafers and socks and bask in it. The warmth. The heat of her small hand in his only complements the temperate sand and the gentle sun. He's glad that she reached out to him, carefully intertwined their fingers, without saying a word. He doesn't want or need words. He wants to stay here, in her dream, forever.

He leans over, and with a soft hand sweeps a few curls of her chestnut brown hair off her neck. Whispers in her ear: _Thank you_. Adds: _I wish we could stay. For a while. Forever._

At this, she starts, suddenly, and drops his hand from hers like a hot coal. Her hand slides to her pocket, looking for reassurance she can't find with him at the moment and her eyes are lost to the ocean that doesn't exist. She tries to turn away, but he catches her shoulder.

He meant it as a joke of sorts, sort of (read: he meant it, of course he did), but he half expected her to take it like this. He would have fully expected it if he was his normal self. He usually knows things, acts on them perfectly. Always thinks everything through. But not around Ariadne.

"Ari, wait," he says gruffly. He can never hide anything when he's with her. Especially not when he's _happy_ and with her. Which, unfortunately, happens often.

"Dammit Arthur, you can't just say stuff like that!" Ariadne shouts, furious. Sometimes the fury is his favorite part of her. It reminds him that she's not fragile. Not to be toyed with. "You can't _mean_ things like that. I know that sometimes you revel in saying things without thinking, that it makes you feel free, but you can't," she's whispering now, but her whisper is somehow louder than what came before. "We _can't_. Our lives are not a dream. I don't want them to be."

She turns away again to fiddle with the ever present scarf around her neck and pulls out her pawn, turning it in her fingers, feeling the precise weight of it.

"We can't stay forever, even if you'd like to," she adds sullenly, catching a glimpse of the watch stationed on Arthur's right wrist. "We only have about twenty seconds left in this one anyways."

As Arthur comes back to reality, the first thing he sees is the ceiling of his hotel room, the one they have been sharing since the last one and the one before that. The second thing he sees is Ariadne's scarf, red and orange like the sunset. The third thing he sees is her walking out the door.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, and they both know that it won't be the last.

_What in the world would I go on for, if I had it all?_


	2. If I Had You I Could Give You Your Dream

I'm gonna keep going with this one, I think. I don't know if it will _go anywhere_ go anywhere, but I like it so far. This one's a little shorter, but what happened happened.

Song's still _If I Had It All _and still belongs to Dave Matthews. Inception and Arthur and Ariadne are all Chris Nolan's. I wish Leo was mine, though :)

Short and sweet, and we're off.

* * *

After Ariadne left, Arthur just lay on the bed, counting ceiling tiles and stripes on the wall. He didn't need to move, and he didn't need to think about what happened. He already knew. And he needed a drink.

Now, three hours later, it's midnight and there's an empty glass of gin on the bedside. Once again, Arthur's on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, wishing that he didn't always feel so in control. That he didn't know everything about everyone all the time. Sometimes, mostly when he's a little buzzed, he just wants to let go. And he misses her already.

He decides the better course of action would be the usual one: to roll over and proceed to not sleep. To wait.

_Sometimes I feel lost_

_As I pull you out like strings of memories_

It's probably around three in the morning when Ariadne pads back into the room, attempting to be quiet. He knows she's there, of course he does, he can hear the soft shuffle of her feet in the plush carpet and the brush of her hands against the walls, but he pretends he doesn't notice, and she appreciates that. She needed a little time. She always needs a little time. And he knows that, too.

But what she also needs is comfort. What Arthur said earlier had scared her, maybe even more than she let on. She can never quite understand him, understand how he says some of things he does, with utmost confidence and no thought to their effect on those around him. He knows what happened to Dom and Mol; he's lived it even, while she's only caught glimpses. He knows what he's saying when he talks of dreams and forever and getting lost.

Sometimes she feels like she can't make him understand that she still had things to live for here: her schooling, her parents, her cat. But as far as she can tell, from the little he opens up to her, he doesn't have much besides Dom, and the job. And her now, too, she supposes.

_Wish I could weave them into you_

_Then I could figure the whole damn puzzle out_

"I'm sorry," Arthur whispers when Aridane finally decides to slide into bed, into is waiting arms. He has yet to tell her this, but here is really his favorite place to be. It's hard for him to sleep now without her. Actually, it's hard for him to sleep anyways, and has been for a while, but he never noticed before. Now, the yearning is acute, although he tries to ignore it like he tries to ignore everything else.

"Would you like to talk about it?" he questions as he kisses her gently on the forehead and then on the lips. Trying to make everything alright.

"No. Let's just forget about it," Ari replies. Arthur can't tell if she's being short, or if she's just tired. He suspects the later, but he can't be sure.

_If I had you, I could give you your dreams_

He kisses her again, harder this time, like he wants to make sure she's still there. Still real. She responds with equal force, tangling her fingers in her hair and entwining her legs with his. This doesn't last long though. They're both tired, and they decide that, for now, they need sleep more than they need each other.

Ariadne knows that she's happy, and Arthur knows that he's content.

She snuggles deeper into his embrace, reveling in the warmth and comfort of it, letting herself relax for the first time since the beach-dream. Lost in her thoughts, she barely notices when Arthur slips into his usual restless sleep. For once, she knows she knows something that he doesn't: everything's fine. For tonight at least. She wonders if he ever feels the same uncertainty that she does. Probably, she decides, somewhere deep down, he isn't sure of much of anything.

He hides most things, but she keeps secrets too. Her biggest is one that she doesn't even like to admit to herself. What scares her the most, when Arthur says he want to stay in their dreams, is that secretly, she agrees.

* * *

AN: Oh man, that was actually really short. I'll make it up to you next time. Promise.


	3. Heavy In Your Arms

Thanks for all the wonderful reviews of the last few chapters. It's still standing still kind of, but after this stuff will actually happen. I think.

Inception= Not Mine, the chapter title was taken from "Heavy In Your Arms" by Florence and The Machine.

sooo...let's go.

* * *

_She _knows _she's dreaming. She's standing in the middle of an infinite white hallway, one that would be virtually impossible to create in the real world mostly due to its sheer size. She doesn't really know what's going on, and apprehension keeps rising in the back of her throat, like the tickle of a throat or a little scream, but she keeps her head._

_If she stretches out her arms, she can touch both walls of the hall. They feel hard and smooth, like some kind of marble, but they're too perfectly white to actually be stone. The ceiling, which she can just barely reach if she stretches an arm above her head and stands on tiptoes, is the same, as is the floor. All flat, all white, all lasting forever._

_Forever. Shit. She can't control this._

_She doesn't much like it anymore, but she can't tell what she's supposed to do or where she's supposed to go. As she usually does when she's nervous and alone, she starts to hum. Off-key, and loudly, to fill the emptiness. It might be "You Make My Dreams" by Hall & Oates (one of her favorites), but she can't really tell too well anymore. She's starting to freak out, and the hall takes the noise and warps it, throwing it back at her backwards and upside down and inside out. _

_She decides to move. She steps tentatively forward with her left foot, feeling her way out with the toe of her black ballet flats, trying not to slip. She takes a few more steps before she feels a shooting pain in the left of her chest. _What the fuck? _She thinks, but it all becomes clear when she looks down to see her shirt and jacket covered with thick, sticky blood. _

_She was never very good with blood. When she was little, she fell from a tree that she was climbing and broke her wrist, scraped up both her knees pretty badly. She could walk just fine, and it shouldn't have been too hard for her to travel 500 feet to her back door to ask her mother for help, but she couldn't. She just sat there, staring at the blood. Terrified. She felt like she was covered in it, frozen by it. A neighbor found her thirty minutes later, passed-out on the lawn. After that she tried to avoid blood as much as possible._

_But now here she is, sliding down the wall, drowning in a pool of it. It seems to bloom from her chest endlessly, but she can't tell where it's coming from, and now it's all over, on her hands, her scarf; the edges of her vision are going fuzzy and she doesn't really remember where she is anymore. But it's not real._

This is just a dream, it's only a dream, _she tells herself, but she reaches into her jacket pocket for her totem, needing to reassure herself. She's panicking now, even as she knows that feeling the weight of the pawn in her hand will calm her down. But as she grasps it, it slips from her fingers. It too is wet with her blood, and she begins to scream._

And then she wakes up. Groggily picking herself of the floor, she works to slow her breathing and her heart beat. She needs to calm down. Looking around her, she determines that she's standing in the middle of an infinite white hallway…

The screaming comes much quicker this time.

* * *

"Ariadne," Arthur mumbles, softly shaking the body that's writhing in bed next to him. He's used to this. It's happened almost every night since the Fischer job. She's told him about the dreams, and he's just glad he's a light enough sleeper to be there to wake her up from them. But for the last couple of weeks, even his arms hold no comfort for her.

"Ariadne," he says, louder, more urgently. "Come on, you need to wake up." He knows what's going to happen, but he does this for her anyways. He can never help himself enough to keep her with him.

She moans again, and suddenly she's awake. Staring at him with those bleary brown doe-eyes, full of fear.

"It's alright," Arthur tries to comfort her, kissing her lightly on her nose, her forehead, and then finally her mouth. "You're awake now. You're really awake. You're safe."

But it doesn't do any good. As soon as Ariadne's fully awake, she's up and out of bed. Arthur watches, dismayed, as she throws on some jeans and a sweater and grabs her purse.

She walks to the door, through the door, out it, running to that secret safe place she has, that place that, apparently, he can't be for her.

As she leaves, Ariadne feels a tinge of regret, but just a small one. Nothing that's enough to make her stop. And Arthur, like he always does, lets her go.


End file.
